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Exercise in futility Worrisome prices |
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CBI on the mat
Missing foreign investors
Rain and after
After tiger parts, China wants ivory Rushdie’s triumph: Three Bookers for one book Chatterati
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Exercise in futility THE Kerala Assembly set an unholy trend when it passed a resolution calling upon the Central government to withdraw from the Indo-US civil nuclear deal. Moved by a member of the ruling CPM, it was passed with 79 votes in favour and none against amidst tumultuous scenes on Friday. The passing of the resolution was an exercise in futility as it has no bearing on the nuclear deal. That the Left is opposed to the deal and has withdrawn support to the UPA government is well known. Since the Left parties are in majority in the Kerala House, it was no big deal to get such a resolution passed. They can have such resolutions passed by the West Bengal and Tripura Houses also. All such resolutions will add up to nothing and will be sheer wastage of time. The right to conduct foreign policy and enter into deals with sovereign nations is within the domain of the Central government. Whether the nuclear deal with the US has the backing of Parliament will be known when the government seeks a trust vote on July 22. But nobody questions the Central government’s right to enter into such deals. Political parties like the CPM have their representatives in the Lok Sabha and they are free to air their views during the debate in the House and vote in any manner they like. They do not have to instigate their party members in various states where they are in a dominant position to pass such resolutions. If other parties also follow suit and pass resolutions, it will be a mockery of the division of powers between the Central and state governments. As it transpires, the intention of the Left was to embarrass the Ind ian Union Muslim League which is a member of the UPA on its support to the nuclear deal. Throughout the “debate” in the Assembly, the Left members were taunting the Muslim Leaguers for their support to the deal which is supposedly anti-Muslim. It is beyond comprehension that a party which claims to be secular and expects its members to be atheistic sees the deal in religious terms. The communalisation of the debate on the nuclear deal shows the condemnable limits to which the CPM can go in its blind hatred for the US and things American.
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Worrisome prices COME Friday and inflation climbs to a new high. This has become a weekly feature. The trend is unlikely to reverse in the near future. After initial anti-inflation measures -- like cutting excise and customs duties and banning exports -- the government seems to have resigned itself to the situation. Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has turned rather philosophical: “Fast-growing economies (like India) will face such problems. But the right attitude, patience and grit can help us not only face the problem but also tackle it”. Such words of wisdom make no sense to the poor, who face the onslaught of rising prices. Some of them also lose even sources of income as industries cut costs and trim their workforce. Textile units are the worst hit. The latest spurt in inflation comes from dearer food items. Despite a record wheat output and an excellent monsoon promising a bumper paddy crop, why are prices not falling? The reason is the government procurement agencies have lifted more wheat stocks than is necessary for the buffer stock, thus causing scarcity and price rise. Costlier fuel, no doubt, is pushing up inflation and the government has little control over global crude oil prices. After a brief retreat earlier this week, oil has bounced back to $147 a barrel. As citizens bear the brunt of costlier fuel, the Centre and the states benefit from the rising oil prices due to the ad valorem levies. They refuse to cut any further the unjustifiably high dose of taxation on petroleum products. The UPA’s new ally, the Samajwadi Party, wants the rupee to appreciate against the dollar so that imports get cheaper. But the suggestion has few takers, it seems. The RBI is to meet on July 29 for a monetary policy review and is expected to further tighten liquidity. This will hurt growth, which is fast slowing down as the IIP figures for May reveal.
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CBI on the mat THE release of Dr Rajesh Talwar, once a prime suspect in the double murder of his daughter Arushi Talwar and domestic help Hemraj from the jail on Saturday, exposes gaping holes in the criminal justice system. After calling him the key suspect and repeatedly seeking extension of his remand in custody, the CBI officers have made a U-turn to claim that they don’t have any evidence against him. But who will compensate him for the mental torture and harassment he had undergone in the jail for 50 days? The conduct of the Noida police was worse than that of the CBI sleuths. From day one, he was not allowed to mourn his daughter’s gruesome murder. Apart from the loss of reputation, he and his wife Dr Nupur Talwar together with their friends Dr Praful Durrani and Dr Anita Durrani were subjected to all kinds of accusations and innuendoes. Character assassination is the worst torture a person can suffer. The CBI officers have claimed that their findings are based on forensic evidence. They cannot present them in the court as they do not stand the test of judicial scrutiny. The CBI will have to present corroborative evidence in the court to prove the abetment of crime by the accused concerned. The investigation so far does not suggest any breakthrough because the CBI is yet to recover the weapon – supposed to be a khukri – used by the killers to murder Arushi and Hemraj. While the last word is yet to be said on the subject, Dr Talwar’s release brings to the fore the inadequacy of the system to bring to book policemen for malicious prosecution of persons like him. Dr Talwar may file a civil defamation suit for damages and pray for criminal defamation proceedings against the Noida Police and the CBI. Alas, this is the only remedy available for a citizen against his brazen persecution and torture – mental and physical – by the police because of shoddy and botched up investigation. Remedial measures to ensure that persons like Dr Talwar are not tortured need to be in place, the sooner the better.
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Money is like an arm or a leg — use it or lose it. — Henry Ford
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Missing foreign investors THE Indian economy is no longer a trillion-dollar economy mainly due to the upheavals in the stock markets. The asset value erosion due to the stock market’s recent fall from its high point attained only a few months ago has already hurt many, including very rich people. Most analysts attribute the stock market’s highs and lows to the soaring oil prices, rising commodity prices and even political instability. Actually political uncertainty does have a role to play in the rise and fall of the Sensex. With a new configuration in the alliances of the government, new trends may emerge and policies may change. These may cause a different (predictably lower) rate of economic growth. Already many economists are pointing out that due to high inflation of nearly 12 per cent, India would experience a much lower growth this year of around 6 to 7 per cent. It could be even lower if oil prices continue to rise and India is burdened with a huge import bill. The 30-stocks Bombay Sensitive Index (Sensex) is also sensitive to the rising current account deficit. During the past few months though the trade deficit was rising, current account deficit did not pose a problem and was manageable as there was a big inflow of foreign institutional investments (FIIs) and there was a comfortable forex reserve. Exports had a robust growth of 31 per cent in January 2008, but suddenly in May exports grew by 13 per cent only. Government control on exports and slack demand orders coming from America seem to be behind the lacklustre export performance. Export growth has not been helped by a falling rupee surprisingly. Import growth, however, jumped up from 27 per cent in April 2007 to 50 per cent in May 2008. The current account deficit (exports minus imports plus the net factor incomes and net transfer payments) has widened: $17.4 billion in 2007-08 as compared to $9.8 billion in 2006-07. In the coming months also due to the rise in the raw material costs, exporters may not be able to fulfil their orders. The supply constraints are as much at play as the demand constraints. All these indicators gave the FIIs a negative signal and they have flown out of India taking out $6.5 billion from the stock market. Basically, they left after sensing that India is heavily dependent on imported oil (76 per cent) whose price is rising to new heights. The petrol price hike undertaken by the government a few weeks ago may have to be repeated and this would stoke up inflation further. The relatively poorer profit results by most companies in the last quarter also did not give the right signals to the stock market investors. The June quarter business profit earnings are likely to grow around 15 per cent as compared to 20 to 25 per cent seen over the past few years. Higher input costs are further going to compress net profit margins that are expected to grow only at 11 per cent for the June 2008 quarter as compared to 25 per cent growth for the March 2008 quarter. Bank credit growth is also moderately rising. There is also the fear that the fiscal deficit will rise due to the strain of the import bill for oil and bigger burden of subsidies that would have to be given by the government to various quarters (fertilizers, oil and food) for industrial and agricultural sustainability and also to relieve the burden of inflation on the poorer strata. A higher fiscal deficit will also be inflationary. Many experts are warning the government on the fiscal deficit front and how it will bloat up because of the non-funded expenditure. Even though the Finance Minister has been saying that the fiscal deficit will be less than 3 per cent, there is no guarantee that unforeseen contingencies will not arise. With interest rates at a new high, the cost of doing business in India has increased specially for foreign investors in financial services, and they have moved out to Hong Kong and Singapore. Since the stock market has been sucked out of its vital blood through the exit of FIIs, it may a take a long time for it to recover. New initial primary offerings (IPOs) by the corporate sector are also not coming forth like before to give the secondary market a boost. Even two months ago the market looked promising. Since there is much uncertainty about the health of the economy, many domestic investors are holding on to their money rather than buying shares. Investing in commodities seems to be a better and safer option because all commodity prices are going up. Commodity futures are flourishing while bourses all around the world are suffering a setback. A weak rupee caused by the demand supply mismatch in the forex market due to the withdrawal of FIIs and slowdown in exports is also making foreign direct investors nervous about investing in India because their returns in terms of dollars would be lower. If the petrol prices go up further, more industries will be squeezed affecting their operating margins, due to higher fuel cost. Even agriculture will be affected and food prices would shoot up further. Already the hotel and travel industries are complaining about a fall in revenue. Soon other industries will be hit like those of construction, automobiles and two-wheelers, consumer durables, and even fast moving consumer goods (FMCG). A downturn in the US will affect most export industries further. A big indicator of the US downturn is the rise in unemployment rate, which rose to 5.5 per cent recently and thousands of jobs were axed. Even the Democrats’ Presidential candidate Barack Obama has said that he would like to see more domestic jobs being retained and outsourcing curbed. If the IT industry feels the pinch due to the downturn of the US in terms of reduced orders, there will be problems in the main sunrise sector of the Indian economy. More jobs will be lost and there will be a pairing down of demand for goods and services. Since the high salaried IT personnel have boosted the realty and jewellery sectors, they too will also be affected. If inflation persists for more than six months, stock markets will continue their decline. The impact of tight credit is being faced by industry and they would stall to their plan for expansion soon. They may even go abroad to raise money. All this is going to affect the stock market sentiments. Strange, but the Sensex has its own ways of calculating the risks ahead and reacting to it. In turbulent times like these, many experts are advising people with spare money to hold on to it till the next general elections after which many things might become
clearer.
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Rain and after YOU can ill afford to open a photo-album or crave to eat crisp pappads or biscuits in the rainy season. Finding a dry and unstinking towel is unthinkable. The peeling off plaster on the walls makes spooky images appear as if the fury of a long season of showers ins’t enough to give nightmares. Irritable creatures not only breed fast during the rainy season, they also come out in the open slithering, fleeting and flying. While in the urban setting we are mostly jolted out of our thrill and romance of the rains when we experience current flowing through walls and taps in the washrooms, and hitchhiking on the potholed roads; in the countryside we often experience the aftermath in collapsing kucha roofs and erupting of the boils and acne on the body. In our Haryanvi parlance, we called it Jharee which meant intermittent rains spread over a week during the monsoon. The rural folk did not have any engagements except hookah and card sessions for men, and rolling sewian noodles and singing folklore for women. Women in Haryana have a different set of songs for different seasons like Phagun and Sawan; and different occasions like Sanjhi and Salooman. If paddy had been sown well in time, rains were good feed for the crop but if there were any laggards then they invariably found the showers a godsend to begin afresh. The first torrent made the watermelons go out of the market and blackberry or jamuns substituted them. The farmers’ agriculture sense confirmed that rain-kissed jamuns developed sweet taste overnight. Newer varieties of mango were also on their way then. Hot and sizzling gul-gulas which were made of sweet-kneaded-floor-rounded-into-bolls and fried in mustard oil, and crisp and sweet suhalis did enormous good to the palate. Due to excessive rains and resultant unavailability of fodder, the milch animals often did not oblige and there always was dearth of milk. Cows are known to be tormented by thundering in the skies, and hence no milk for the keeper. Barsati in general parlance and Chaubara in typical Haryanvi was a one-room penthouse – always considered to be romantic structures. They are airy and located at some height to make you actually feel “on top of the world”. Importance of a Barsati or a Chaubara could be known and felt only during mild showers or torrential rains.These structures in the country dwellings filled your heart with thrill, awe and enjoyment of its own kind. It is in this setting that most of the lore seeking a longing for the soulmate was composed. Sample this: Chaubare pe aaj dharoongi, chau-mukh divra baar; Jaane kaun disa se aawain, mere Raaj Kumar. (I’ll light up all the four entries to the chaubara with a four-mouthed earthen lamp. I don’t know from what direction my Prince Charming may come!) The walls generally developed cracks and in these crevices kept growing the shoots or creatures. Enough grass would grow on the roofs. If the grass was not cut in time, it could make either the roof leak or give way. Even pucca houses had a growth of grass on their rooftops after the rains. Having had a look at such growth of vegetation on his Haveli, renowned Urdu poet Mirza Ghalib had exclaimed rejoicing the rains and making fun of his “isolated” predicament as: Ug raha hai dar-o-diwar pe subza Ghalib, Hum biya-baan mein hain, o’ghar pe bahar aayee hai! And now the last word for various nuances of “barsati”. It has connotations of temporariness. There are “barsati mendhaks”— opportunist frogs — who show their presence only when it suits them. The Army, too, has a slang for “Barsati Major” who will revert back to his rank as Captain, for he was promoted against a vacancy caused against the leave of another
officer.
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After tiger parts, China wants ivory THE world trade in ivory, banned 19 years ago to save the African elephant from extinction, is about to take off again, with the emergence of China as a major ivory buyer. Alarmed conservationists are warning of a new wave of elephant killing across both Africa and Asia if China is allowed to become a legal importer – as looks likely at a meeting in Geneva this week. The unleashing of a massive Chinese demand for ivory, in the form of trinkets, name seals, expensive carvings and polished ivory tusks, is likely to give an enormous boost to the illegal trade, which is entirely poaching-based, conservationists say. “This is going to mean a return to the bad old days where elephants are being shot into extinction,” said Allan Thornton, of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), the green group which provided much of the evidence on which the original ivory ban was based in 1989. The ban succeeded in halting a headlong decline of African elephants at the hands of poachers, especially in east African countries such as Kenya. Elephant numbers across the continent were estimated to have crashed from 1.3 million in 1980 to just 625,000 in 1989. It was intended to be complete and worldwide but in 1997 four southern Africa countries: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, persuaded other Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) member states to let them opt out, on the basis that their elephant populations were stable or increasing, and they would only sell tusks of elephants which had died naturally or been shot as rogues. Their campaign was led by Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe. As a result, Cites sanctioned an auction of just under 50 tonnes of ivory from the four countries in 1999, but opened it only to “approved buyers” – countries whose enforcement provisions against illegal trading were deemed sufficiently rigorous. Japan was the only country approved, while China was excluded, and the sale was opposed by conservationists. Now, however, a second auction of 108 tonnes from the same four countries is being planned, and the Chinese, claiming that they are much more active on combating illegal trading activities, are seeking “approved buyer” status. Their application will be heard at the Geneva meeting next week of the Cites Standing Committee, which will also consider allowing the second ivory auction. Both proposals are likely to get the green light, as the Cites secretariat is making a favourable recommendation in each case. John Sellar, Cites’ senior anti-smuggling and fraud official, said yesterday that China had made considerable improvements to its enforcement regime against illicit trading, and the country’s score out of 100 for efficiency on the organisation’s complex Elephant Trade Information System had risen from 5.6 in 2002 to 63 today. The recommendation would be that they should become an official ivory trading partner, said Mr Sellar. However, environmentalists fiercely dispute the effectiveness of China’s crackdown and raise the larger issue of the huge ivory demand that is about to be unleashed from an increasingly affluent country with ten times the population of Japan. “In a country of 1.3 billion people, demand for ivory from just a fraction of one per cent of the population is colossal,” said the EIA’s Allan Thornton. “If these new legal imports go ahead, they will provide a gigantic cover for illegal ivory to be sucked in.” He went on: “Right now across central Africa, elephant populations are being destroyed in countries like Chad, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to satisfy illegal demand in countries such as China. The current estimate is that 23,000 African elephants are killed a year by poachers – which is totally unsustainable. If China becomes an approved trading partner, these figures will skyrocket.” Last year the EIA produced a detailed report on what it said was China’s failure to address its illegal ivory trade. Mr Thornton said last week: “There is no evidence that the Chinese government has broken up or taken effective action against criminal syndicates behind the illegal flow of ivory into the country.” Yesterday the EIA released an internal Chinese government document which, it said, showed that, over 12 years, officials lost track of 121 tonnes of ivory from the country’s official stockpile – equivalent to the tusks of 11,000 elephants. “We have not been able to account for the shortfall through the sale of legal ivory by the selected selling sites,” Chinese officials reported in the document to Cites in 2003. “This suggests a large amount of illegal sale of the ivory stockpile has taken place.” Officials of China’s Foreign Ministry said yesterday that they had no information on the subject. The question of China’s trading partner status comes up at the Standing Committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon. Britain has a representative on the committee – Trevor Salmon, a senior civil servant who is head of the Cites policy unit at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Asked how Britain would be voting on the sale and the Chinese application, a Defra spokeswoman said last night: “The UK will only support this limited sale if all internationally-agreed conditions – including that the proceeds of the sale are used exclusively for elephant and community conservation and development programmes within or adjacent to the elephant range – have been met. “Before allowing China to become a trading partner in a one-off sale of stockpiled ivory, the Cites Standing Committee will consider all evidence on measures China has in place.
By arrangement with The Independent
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Rushdie’s triumph: Three Bookers for one book Midnight’s Children had won the Booker prize in 1981, the year it was published, as readers and critics took notice of Saleem Sinai, the Bombay born narrator who shared his birth with that of his nation, India. The novel explores the Indian society through the story of the protagonist, and it has been favourably compared with such classics as James Joyce’s Ulysses and Gunter Grass’s The Tin Drum. Saleem was among the hundred-odd characters that inhabited the magical place that rose out of Rushdie’s pages as readers took twists and turns that reflected India’s history, culture, people and places. The book also won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize the same year. Rushdie shot into prominence with this novel that became a trend-setter, and changed the way in which writing in English had so far been perceived in India and other postcolonial nations. A multi-layered local sensibility had replaced an imperial one of the kind that typified the works of EM Forster, Rudyard Kipling and Paul Scott. There was a riot of colours, a world of disorder, many local words that were to eventually be adopted by the English language; Rushdie deserved more literary credit than he got, because controversies surrounded his life. With Midnight’s Children, controversy arose when Indira Gandhi took umbrage at the criticism of the Emergency, and brought a libel action against the book and its author. The case was settled out of court. The impact or popularity of Midnight’s Children has, from the very beginning, been tremendous, and both critics and the general reader responded to the book that also became a part of many university curricula all over the world. In 2003, the Royal Shakespeare Company adapted the novel to the stage. This international readership and acclaim made the author also a major literary star. Whereas The Satanic Verses eclipsed his previous work because of the reactions that it aroused, including the infamous fatwa, Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children continued to win admirers. In 1993, it was awarded the Booker of Bookers prize for being the best of all prize-winning books, when the Booker Prize celebrated its 25th anniversary. Time magazine lists it as the 100 best English-language novels since 1923. Of course, there is much more to Rushdie than Midnight's Children and The Satanic Verses. Some of his other works include: Shame (1983), Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990), Imaginary Homelands: Essays and Criticism, 1981 – 1991 (1992), The Moor's Last Sigh (1995), The Ground Beneath her Feet (1999), Fury (2001), Step Across This Line: Collected Non-fiction 1992 – 2002 (2002), Shalimar the Clown (2005), The Enchantress of Florence (2008), and Best American Short Stories 2008 (2008, as editor). Rushdie has been reviled, and honoured. Last year, the Queen of England awarded a knighthood to him for “services to literature”. The honour triggered off protests in various parts of the world. Sir Salman has continued writing, and his latest book, The Enchantress of Florence, has been received well. Rushdie’s writing has brought India and the sub-continent, along with its complexities, to the hands of English-speaking audiences worldwide. The continuing importance of Sir Salman to the world of literature, and the relevance of his work to his readers, was reaffirmed when the arguably best-known winner of the Booker award also was chosen as the best.
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Chatterati THE capital is abuzz with so much activity. Politics of course is dirty but it is getting muckier by the day. Money, power and selfish interests are playing a big role within the allies, keeping in mind the coming elections. Friends turning foes and foes turning friends are no more a new thing in politics. The common man is shocked at how religion, caste, creed and horse trading are going on at the highest levels. Favours to friends of allies are made unashamedly by the so called political heads. Big business houses are the major players behind the scenes. There is no dignity or respect in action, words or deals by politicians now. The man of the moment, Amar Singh, astute politician that he is, is as usual playing his cards well – hogging the lime light in the media, lunching with the UPA chairperson and negotiating with the Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi. The Prime Minister is adamant to get this N-deal through and is backed by Rahul Gandhi, even though Sonia Gandhi was a bit reluctant. She was keeping in mind her past experiences with the Samajwadi Party. Where and how the Congress will reach the half way mark of 272 in Parliament is still a million dollar question. The UPA is hoping that the Akalis will vote for them, keeping in mind that the UPA is led by a Sardar Prime Minister. Their founders are working over time to make sure they do. And all Congress guys are keeping their fingers crossed. The SMS doing the rounds here is “From Lal Salaam to Dalal Salaam”, which explains all. Dignified exit Ghulam Nabi Azad made a dignified exit as J&K Chief Minister by not giving into horse-trading or allowing himself to be blackmailed by so called politicised sentiments. His last speech in the Vidhan Sabha put all Kashmiri leaders in their place. He refused to become a dealer from a leader. And he said that Kashmir was the crown of India and he refused to dirty it with under-hand dealings. He did not mince words about Kashmir’s so-called leaders and their double standards, whether it was the hawala money coming in from across the border or their liaisoning with them. Azad has always left religion out of politics and is only interested in the development of the state. Keeping in mind Ghulam Nabi’s history, this man is sure to bounce back. He also, in fact, saved a lot of MLAs some embarrassment. Their hearts were with him but they were tied by the whip issued by their respective parties. A dignified exit for a man who has always served his party and nation with his head held high. He has faith in his people who will see good over evil emerge. If only the various party leaders would keep their personal issues on the side and come together to save the state, in the coming elections. Azad repeatedly said he was not ready to stay in his chair with allies who play with the lives of the
common man, disguising themselves in sherwanis and preaching virtues, whereas they are the ones who are hand-in-hand with militancy and live with double standards in the state.
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Midnight’s